Any suggestions for retirement?

I'm 25, been career for about a year. I'm trying to find the best way to financially plan for a comfortable retirement. I figure it's never too early to plan. I'll have the pension, and I've started a Roth IRA. I don't know if I should play the stock market, invest in real estate, etc. Any other suggestions?

U answered your own Questions

The second post is great advice but thought id chime in just a little. Play both markets, I did and its been paying off great. I am in IRA's as well as invest in Real Estate.

After 911 I was sure glad I had the real estate to carry me thru the bad times and now all is good. Glad your looking ahead to your future its great i wish I did when I was your age I would be really looken good.

on our department , members are offered to participate in several 457K plans.these are offered by outside financial institutes and are meant to be a supplement to a pension.This is a special plan mostly for municipal employees.Since you are looking for a good long term plan , I would recommend this.Nationwide is one of the providers that we deal with(http://nrsretire.nrsservicecenter.com).457s have many good advantages.tax-deferred contributions , reduced tax while making contributions , on-line instant investing and monitoring.both my wife (a career ff also) and myself put money into ours weekly.Good luck in whatever you choose . and I'm glad to see a yearling already planning ahead.

Many FDs offer payroll deferrment plans some are good...others are not. If your city does not participate in one for you FD, have your Local look into http://www.iaff-fc.com/ (IAFF Financial Corp). They use the same investment companies my FD uses and the guys seem to be pretty satisfied with the services.

In St. Paul, we have a 2 defered comp programs, one admined by the state-bad, and the other admined by ING-good. The reps we have for ING here are great; always available, will answer your questions, will take the time to review any ideas you have, and will give advice required.
But either one of these programs won't do you any good unless you have the discapline to actually put money in!

My posts reflect my views and opinions, not the organization I work for or my IAFF local. Some of which they may not agree. I.A.C.O.J. member
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason
Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788Elevator Rescue Information

Look closely at the 457. It offers some good points for someone who will qualify for retirement at an early age. One important piece of advice is to be aware of how your money is invested. You will be able to choose to be in accounts that range from stocks, bonds, and many other funds. You do not have to stay in that one account forever. A couple of years ago when the stock market was tanking, everybody was crying about how much they were losing in their 457 accts. I moved mine to a Core Bond Index, and made 9% as others were losing that much or more. Watch what your fund is doing, and adjust accordingly. I don't mean to make a change everyday, but, if the economy is tanking as it did after 9-11, take the hint and get into something that is less sensitive to the market.
Don't take my word for it, get to know someone in the company that manages your account. Try to get on a first name basis with them so you can have discussions, not just sales talks.

retirement help

Like many of you I have interests outside of the fire service. I used to work at major financial institution while a volunteer firefighter. I decided that I didn't want to be stuck in a cubicle all day, I was downtown in a major city blocks away from FD HQ. I heard the Federal Q's several times a day and couldn't stand sitting at the desk, even though I did enjoy my job. I became a career FF/medic. I still follow the market on a daily basis. I was able to convince most of my friends to get out of the market last summer. I had been predicting a bad market since february of last year. I follow several (well known in financial circles) sources of information, much of it I pay a lot of money for because I figure it's worth it to spend $250/year to avoid losing thousands as many of my co-workers did. I started a website.
457research.com
it's got a free daily blog where, depending how my shift goes I update it every morning or every day. It's got a free section where we talk about the market. It's got a paid subscriber section to get signals as I get them. If you just watched the daily blog you would get the signals, although not immediately. Many moves in the stock market happen quickly and much of the meat of the move happens in the first few days.
So many of us put our money into these funds, just hoping that when it comes time to retire, the 100-200 bucks a week we put in adds up to the million or so we hope to have at retirement. It doesn't work that way. We spend more time researching buying a new truck than we do our retirement.
Anyway, hope you like the site. I welcome comments and criticism.

For everybody here, I will tell you what my paid subscribers already know, is that we are on a buy signal right now for the stock market that fired March 11th. I expect this to be a rally in an overall bear market. It doesn't mean that we can't play this move that should last at least a couple more months. No one can see out any further than that, just like no one can predict the weather that far ahead. We have made >15% return on the S&P 500 in a little over 3 weeks. Not bad. I wouldn't be surprised to see a retracement of half of that move, but I anticipate the lows of March will hold. If they don't hold, then you would want to get out of the stock market and back into bonds/money market/conservative allocation.

Ok, well I just wanted to throw that out to you all. I hope we all can make a decent return on our retirements. Several of our retirees that cashed out in the last few years and took lump-sum distributions of their pensions have gotten really hurt. I will tell you that it is possible to know when to get in to the stock market, and when to get out. I've been trading since 1995, studying and researching. I'm a career FF, IAFF member, and a medic. Ok, have a good weekend all